Pro: Vouchers open doors for poor kids

Independence Day came early for many minority, low-income and inner-city children throughout America who are presently imprisoned in our country's worst-performing schools.

For them, it was June 27, 2002, the day the U. S. Supreme Court removed the church-state argument against vouchers. They now have the same educational freedoms and opportunities that more affluent families already enjoy.

Disregarding the fact that the U.S. Constitution does not include any reference to the "wall of separation between church and state," the fundamental underlying principle of school choice is to empower parents to make their own decisions, whether it be for a religious school or some other alternative. What a concept -- parents, not the state, determining what is best for their kids.

Religious settings for pre-K (Head Start) and post-12 (GI Bill) students already use vouchers without opposition. When a pre-school child goes to a program housed in a church or a high school graduate receives a college scholarship to Notre Dame or Yeshiva, there is no outrage.

Why, then, is the reaction to vouchers in K-12 so visceral? Clearly the answer is simple -- the self-interests of teachers' unions and educrats are being challenged -- William Bennett calls them "the blob." If they have any conscience at all, how can they continue to fight against vouchers targeted to the poorest families whose children are trapped in the worst-performing schools?

Poor families, unlike their wealthier counterparts, do not have the resources to relocate to a neighborhood with a better school or to send their children to a private school or even to pay for transportation to another public school. If their children are assigned to an unsatisfactory public school, they are stuck.

And where is the much-heralded accountability to them? When private schools fail their students, they go out of business; but when public schools fail their students, they receive more money. This may make sense to "the blob," but the logic escapes most of us in the real world.

Fortunately for everyone, the Supreme Court decision is likely to change all of that. Why does "the blob" continue to oppose giving freedom and choice to those children who are forced to attend schools that don't educate them? Could it be that they put their self-interests above those of the kids? We hear them protect the system, but not the students it exists to serve. If the system is taking such good care of its customers, then why is there so much fear of competition?

Should the students in some of DPS's worst schools, like Brown, Ford, Munroe or Valverde -- where less than 15 percent can read and write at grade level -- be allowed to escape, or must they be forced to remain in a school that is not educating them? How many teachers' union officials would voluntarily send their children to those very schools?

It is difficult to legitimatize the arguments made by so many upper- and middle-class hypocrites, including many educrats and teachers' union officials, who send their own children to private school but would deny that same opportunity to socio-economically disadvantaged parents.

Vouchers have never been the end goal -- quality education for all kids is! Vouchers merely represent the best available means to get there. Why is there such paranoia and mean spiritedness when it comes to educating poor, minority children? This is an issue of morality, of civil rights and responsibility -- our society is morally obligated to help those in need.

To many of us, this landmark decision of the U.S. Supreme Court is as important as Brown vs. Board of Education in 1954 that guaranteed equal access to quality education. It has taken almost 50 years to address the cruelest hoax of all. The Brown vs. Board decision removed bigots from the public schoolhouse doors who were blocking poor black children from entering. On June 27, the Supreme Court took the first step toward removing today's hypocrites who are standing in the doors of America's poorest performing schools, preventing poor black and brown children from leaving.

June 27, 2002, may not yet rank with the Declaration of Independence, the Emancipation Proclamation or Cinco de Mayo, but it may prove to be one of the most important days in the lives of parents struggling to give their children their fair crack at the American dream.